The Ninth Arab Women’s Forum for Creativity awarded the “Creativity Award” to Wajdan Al-Aqab, President of the Kuwaiti Society for Environmental Protection, at a major ceremony held recently in Cairo, among distinguished female figures in the Arab world and with the participation of a select group of decision-makers, researchers and thinkers in the Arab world.
Wajdan Al-Aqab, head of the association, said that she “received an invitation to be honored on Arab Women’s Creativity Day. This festival highlights the roles of Arab women in many fields,” noting that she presented a lecture on “The Role of Arab Women in Voluntary Environmental Work – The Kuwaiti Model,” through which she demonstrated the effectiveness of Arab and Kuwaiti women in contributing to the planning, supervision and implementation of environmental programs and plans that enrich and enhance the course of environmental work in its governmental and civil voluntary aspects.
Al-Aqab indicated that she had submitted two initiatives. The first, a joint initiative of the association, was the “Future Environmental Jobs” initiative, which she detailed. This initiative highlighted the association’s role in drafting the 2014 Environmental Protection Law, specifically Article 119 concerning environmental management in ministries and agencies. She also mentioned the association’s ongoing efforts with the Ministry of Education to pursue scholarships in environmental engineering and environmental science. The initiative further outlined the association’s role in raising awareness among eleventh and twelfth-grade students through the Green Schools program, focusing on the ”Future of Environmental Jobs“ component. Al-Aqab presented statistical data on student scholarships abroad for these environmental specializations, adding, ”According to the statistics, the number of students sent abroad for these specializations began in 2015 with five students from the western branch of the Cultural Office in Los Angeles, studying at universities in the United States.“ She noted that by 2017, the number had increased to approximately 150 students, demonstrating the success of the awareness program among high school students through the Green Schools initiative. The remaining task is to identify job vacancies and develop job descriptions. For environmental jobs listed in the Civil Service Bureau.
She stated that she “participated in the judging committee for the seven initiatives that were selected from more than 70 youth initiatives. The youth initiative (for recycling organic waste) gained the association’s attention. It was the only initiative nominated by Al-Aqab to win first place, and it directly contributed to achieving more than one of the Sustainable Development Goals 2030. It provides job opportunities for people in agricultural villages, helps produce clean energy from gas, and provides organic fertilizers that do not disrupt the soil composition due to the reduced use of chemical fertilizers, thus producing healthy crops free of chemicals.” She emphasized that “this initiative will be implemented in the State of Kuwait and benefited from through the association, in addition to generalizing it to the Gulf Cooperation Council countries through the presidency of the Gulf Network of Environmental NGOs.”.
She reported that during the festival she presented and discussed her second initiative, which is a personal one, namely the “Arab Environmental Media Initiative,” through the General Secretariat for Environment and Sustainable Development of the General Union of Arab Producers, which works through the Arab Ministers of Information at the League of Arab States, and she holds the position of Secretary-General for Environment and Sustainable Development. She added that she “reviewed the output of 150 television episodes of the series on monitoring and documenting wildlife in the State of Kuwait, which Al-Aqab established about 5 years ago.”.
